Tag Archives: slavery

I meet young men and women who are prostituted – some of whom are paying off debt, some are paying for school, some are drowning in self-worthlessness and living a lie that they’ve been told their entire lives. As I encounter them offering health, it’s also an opportunity for freedom.

It is well known that some who have been rescued, run away back to their abuser, their pimp, their trafficker. Why do some who have tasted freedom return to bondage?

The Israelites, an entire nation of people, after having been rescued from slavery, wanted to go back to Egypt!

It’s as if some people don’t even realize they are in bondage.

Well, what about you? To what things or ideas are you in bondage and don’t even realize it?

Mark Buchanan in his book The Rest of God discusses the guy who has been sitting by the pool of Bethesda (John 5) for 38 years if he wants to get well? I’ve always thought that was a strange question to ask a guy like that. But I understand it better now after walking with people (including myself) that clearly sometimes do not want to be well.

Do you want to be well? Do you want to be made whole?

I do, but then sometimes I don’t. Haven’t you ever wondered sometimes if your life would actually be easier if you weren’t trying to follow Jesus? I have! I mean, c’mon! I should have taken the RED pill! It’s hard! God never lets up! Of course life with Jesus does have its sweet parts, but then it’s still a lot of work, and I’m good at giving myself guilt-trips, which just sink me deeper.

Buchanan writes, “Setting free isn’t work.” We all know that Jesus wasn’t really breaking the Sabbath when he healed people on the holy day. “But being set free can be.”

It’s a vicious cycle, even hard-wired to some extent as an addiction, as Gerald May in his book Addiction and Grace would say. It is confounding, that some people would not want to be well and whole, but I have to look no further than myself. I have an addiction to feed – an addiction to work. I’ve got do it, make it, know it, write it… It’s up to me. I don’t know another way… rather, I don’t trust another way. I don’t trust another. I don’t trust God. I lean too much on my own understanding and what is known to me seems to be safer, even if it really is not. I play with the dark side. I’m enslaved in my own mind, in my heart. Damn Pride!

Breaking free of slavery, whether it is physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual is a long process. You’ve experienced it. You’ve walked people through it. We may not be caught up in debt bondage or pimped out by my trafficker or trapped in a foreign country as a domestic service worker, but I’m still prone to enslavement.

Please, PLEASE do not take this as a belittlement of people’s absolutely unimaginable horrific situations. I’m not comparing situations here. However, as I meet people who do seem to have some sort of choice to make steps towards freedom and wholeness, yet still turn away, I’m confronted by these questions of human nature. I want to continue to break down the barriers between US and THEM. We are all broken images of our creator – it is not a matter of grading of circumstance.

There is much much more to discuss regarding Sabbath rest, addiction, grace, and slavery. Books and books, in fact. Here, I just want to present some questions and ideas to you and I hope you find them as challenging has I have.

I’m not yet finished with Buchanan’s book but I highly recommend it! Although I’ve practiced taking a weekly Sabbath for at least 15 years, I’m discovering more about the attitude of Sabbath rest is something that I’ve not fully understood. Perhaps more about Sabbath in another post…